Campaign of the Month:
May 2009

Forgotten Realms: The Savage North

Wandering around the secret second floor

In which we bust open a bunch of treasure chests and totally piss of a purple mold

7

FEB/11

We continue to explore the second floor, traveling through hexagonal chambers with undead, fleshy tapestries hanging on the walls. We ultimately find a laboratory with many floating shelves with a variety of experiments brewing on them.

Going through the other hallway, we find that it quickly turns into an undulating, ectoplasm cylinder ending in a swirling grey portal that is apparently deadly to living creatures. We find a secret passage nearby and follow it to a large chamber. Inside is a devil sits in silver circle. An obsidian shelve circles the room with twelves different, distinct chests on it.

The chests (all locked):

Fashioned from astral driftmetal, lined with spikes

Alchemically-treated wood, with a death slaad’s skull molded into its lid

Mortared illithid and githzerai spines, adorned with illithid skulls

Bronzewood sculpted in the likeness of a dragon, painted with red scales and a locked shaped like a dragon’s head

Alchemically-treated wood, wrapped in demon skin and adorned with horns and protrusions

Darkwood, glazed githzerai eyes set in the curved lid

Thick gold dragon hide with iron handles and fittings

Iron with clawed feet, iron handles and a built-in lock shaped like a leering githyanki skull

Alchemically treated human skin stretched over a frame of bone, with iron fittings and bone handles

Jade, covered in green slaad skin with githyanki symbols engraved on the lid

We bash our way through the first chest and find a rune that blasts our minds. Everyone but Sardon appears possessed and walks out the secret door back to the ectoplasmic hallway. We shake it off just before being moving sidewalked to our death.

In the chest Sardon finds very valuable books in the chest. They re-arrange their lettering to allow him to read them. They are the:

Manual of Gainful Exercise

Manual of Quickness & Action

Manual of Bodily Health

Tome of Clear Thought

Tome of Understanding

Tome of Leadership and Influence

We try to detect more pieces of the astral driftmetal key and are able to determine that one of the potions we had gotten from Zamkress’s lab is actually a piece. Pouring it over the key, it reforms a quadrant of the key.

Smashing open #10: 3 githzerai heads with black gems (holding a pinpoint of light) stuffed in their mouths. The gems are apparently the equivalent of magic jar spells.

Smashing open #6: six green flasks with more ectoplasmic green liquid.

Smashing open #9: full of ectoplasmic mucus, filled with risiduum. This is apparently an ancient technique to combined large amounts of ridisuum with the life force of sentient creators as part of the process to create intelligent magic items. Loakan submerges his mace and it becomes a +6 sentient item.

We throw alchemist’s frost and then alchemist’s fire on the purple mold and it just fills 2/3rds of the room. We find another secret passage on the western wall and Loakan jumps through, finding what looks like a library filled with scrolls and three books on a lectern. Floating in the middle of the room is a humanoid figure covered in wrappings, wreathed in black flames. It points at him and curses.

The creature begins to murder Loakan. Actually, it tries to turn him to stone and then floats there, doing nothing much. He backs out and apparently it lets him.

At a loss of what else to do, Sardon drinks one of the ectoplasmic potions and it turns him into some sort of undead creature (a temporary lich).

Considered to be medium shadow humanoid (undead)

Immune to poison & disease

Resist 10 necrotic, vulnerable 10 radiant

We then jump through the swirling grey portal at the end of the ectoplasmic hallway. We arrive in a spooky room notably with eggs on a table, dragon bones all around an a big mirror facing the door. Upon entering, it feels like something is trying to pull at our souls.

Through the mirror, we see a horde of githyanki wandering and banging on the other side of the mirror. Some appear to be glamored to look like githyanki, though.

Through the left-hand alcove is a green portal leading to a network of caves made of a black, crumbling stone – they are carved into the body of Tu’narath.

The right-hand alcove holds another portal leading to dimly lit chamber with obsidian walls and floors. A short hallway leads to double-doors and stairwells on either side head up. It radiates heat.

We decide to head back to fight the floating guy in the library-like room.